Life at Guantánamo Bay

Around 780 people have been detained at the prison at Guantánamo Bay since it opened in January 2002. Thirty men remain there today, many of whom have not been charged.

The podcast “Serial,” which debuted in 2014 with the story of a questionable murder conviction, has dedicated its new season to Guantánamo. Over nine episodes, it tells the story of the prison through a personal lens, by way of conversations with people who worked or were detained there.

I spoke with the hosts, Sarah Koenig and Dana Chivvis, about the show.

Desiree: There’s an interesting political story to be told about Guantánamo, but why did you decide to tell this story through the people who lived through it?

Sarah: The government threw all of these normal people on Guantánamo, and they had to sort out how on earth are we supposed to behave in here, how are we supposed to make sense of this? So over the course of 20 years, you saw this thing, which was kind of like a terrible spasm in the national response to 9/11, harden into something that was trying to justify and sustain itself. I think that’s what we were interested in: Who were those people who are having to make decisions, who are having to survive a thing not of their own making, and what did that look like and what did that feel like?

In the reporting of the podcast, did anything upend your preconceived notions or surprise you about Guantánamo?

Dana: The people who work in Guantánamo for the military rotate in and out about every nine months, but the prisoners have been there, so very quickly the prisoners learned how the prison operated better than the guard force did. I heard a lot of stories about prisoners who would correct the guards and be like, “No, no, you need to give me 10 squares of toilet paper,” or “You’re not handcuffing me right. Let me show you how to do it.”